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Initial vowel agglutination in the Gulf of Guinea creoles

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Summary:Reinterpretation of morpheme boundaries is a well-attested phenomenon in contact linguistics and language-internal diachronic change. Examples of agglutination have been noted in a wide array of creole languages (e.g. Holm 1988: 97; Parkvall 2000; 81-3) and especially in French-based creoles (e.g. Baker 1984, Grant 1995). This paper focuses on the Gulf of Guinea creoles (GGCs), where a number of etymologically consonant-initial words in the lexifier language, Portuguese, exhibit an agglutinated vowel lacking a morphological function. This property is particularly common in Lung’ie (Principense Creole). My aim is to answer the following interrelated questions: (i) Is there evidence for diachronic layering of agglutination in the GGCs? (ii) What are the workings that underlie agglutination in the GGCs? (iii) What are the origins of agglutination in the GGCs?
Main Authors:Hagemeijer, Tjerk
Year:2009
Country:Portugal
Document type:preprint
Access type:open access
Associated institution:Universidade de Lisboa
Language:English
Origin:Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa

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